Lima Memorial Director of Public Safety and Security and Police Chief Rick Sanchez was the guest speaker for the 26th annual Safe Community Awards, held at the Milano Cafe on Wednesday.
Charlotte Caldwell | The Lima News
LIMA — Twelve people and one organization received awards Wednesday at the Milano Cafe as part of the 26th annual Safe Community Awards, presented by the Lima-Allen County Safe Community Coalition.
The guest speaker was Lima Memorial Director of Public Safety and Security and Police Chief Rick Sanchez, who has spent the last 30 years in safety-oriented jobs.
Sanchez mentioned some safety work of the Lima-Allen County Regional Planning Commission in 2023, including helping to increase seatbelt usage in the area from 77% to 82% — when the state average is 80.8% — and providing children’s bike helmets to Lima Memorial and Mercy Health-St. Rita’s Medical Center.
“Community safety is a shared responsibility. Every effort counts. Your time, your voice, your compassion can make a difference,” Sanchez said. “Building a safe community is a journey, not a destination. It requires ongoing effort. It requires collaboration and support from each of us. Together we can create a culture of safety and care that extends beyond today’s events.”
“It makes me feel really good to be able to do that for people and to recognize people for emergency services, both also for other things; for being a great citizen and advocate for things in the community, for engineering work, for all kinds of things that people don’t realize go into keeping a community safe,” said Megan Kinnear about organizing the event. She is the public outreach and community program planner for the Lima-Allen County Regional Planning Commission.
The people and organization that received awards were:
• Child Safety Award: Sarah Misiakiewicz, Allen County Public Health. Misiakiewicz coordinates two harm reduction programs at Allen County Public Health: Project DAWN, a Narcan distribution program, and Cribs for Kids, which provides portable cribs to families and educates them to prevent infant sleep-related deaths. Misiakiewicz distributes about 300 cribs yearly.
• Youth Safety Award: David McDaniel, Kruisin’ Driving School and Apollo Truck Driving Academy. McDaniel has been a driving instructor for 10 years. Before that, he was a special deputy for the Allen County Sheriff’s Office and taught law enforcement to teenagers.
• Outstanding Citizen Award: Carolyn Wilkerson, speaker/author. Wilkerson is an advocate for safety and sobriety and donates her time to educating others about drug addiction and alcoholism while sharing her story. She’s been sober for 38 years.
• Engineering Safety Award: Ross Vennekotter, city of Lima. Vennekotter has been involved in the Faurot Park new playground site improvement project, the Spencerville Road sidewalk improvement project — which is two miles of sidewalk connecting downtown Lima to Faurot Park and Cable Road — and the state Route 81 resurfacing project — which includes curb ramp upgrades for improved access. He also serves on the bike and pedestrian steering committee and the bike and pedestrian task force.
• EMS/Fire Safety Award: Nathan Haines and Tanesha Manley, Lima Fire Department. Haines has been with the department since 2014. Manley has been with the department for three years.
• Traffic Safety Award: Travis Ricker, Ohio State Highway Patrol, and Sgt. David Boyles, American Township Police Department. Ricker’s activity on the job this month related to traffic safety includes making 1,025 contacts with enforcement and non-enforcement traffic stops; responding to 101 crashes; making 13 impaired driver arrests; recovering two stolen vehicles; making four felony arrest stops; and enforcing 42 seatbelt violations and 34 distracted driving violations.
• Service Award Training and Education: Police Chief/Emergency Management Director Gene Smith, Mercy Health, and Deputy Chief Lee Short, Lima Fire Department. Smith is a retired major of the Ohio State Highway Patrol, and Short has been with Lima Fire for 20 years. While previously working together at an active school shooter training, they saw a problem with the time it took law enforcement to contain the situation and EMS crews to help victims. They worked together to make rescue task force teams, which pair law enforcement with EMS crews to make providing care to victims quicker.
• Lifetime Achievement Award: Jeff Orphal, Apollo Career Center, and Retired Judge Richard Warren, Lima Municipal Court. Orphal retired as a captain from the Wapakoneta Fire Department and retired from Mercy Health Life Flight as a flight medic. Since 2001, he’s been a fire and EMS instructor at Apollo and was a public safety program manager from 2018 to 2023. He also played a role in Apollo receiving multiple state grants to help fund its new public safety building, opening in 2025. Warren recently retired as chief magistrate of Lima Municipal Court after 12 years there and spent a previous 24 years as an Allen County common pleas judge.
• The Allen County Fire Chiefs Association — which is an organization comprised of area firefighters who sometimes come together to handle major incidents — also received an award for their efforts fighting the Resource Recycling mulch fire that occurred in July. Eighteen departments from four counties worked for 14 hours to put out the fire, which was caused by spontaneous combustion.
Reach Charlotte Caldwell at 567-242-0451.
